Saturday, May 20, 2017

1.AMY GOODMAN: Did Russia leak the
documents, either the DNC documents or the John Podesta emails, to WikiLeaks?

2.AMY GOODMAN:But how do you know—how do you know it’s not Russia? How do
you know it’s not a state actor, since you usually say you don’t know who gives
you documents?

3.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julian, I want to turn to
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff speaking at a hearing of the House
Intelligence Committee last month.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF: Later in July and after the
convention, the first stolen emails detrimental to Hillary Clinton appear on
WikiLeaks. A hacker who goes by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 claims responsibility
for hacking the DNC and giving the documents to WikiLeaks. The leading
private cybersecurity firms, including CrowdStrike, Mandiant and ThreatConnect,
reviewed the evidence of the hack and conclude, with high certainty, that it was
the work of APT 28 and APT 29, who are known to be Russian intelligence
services.The U.S. intelligence community also later confirms that
the documents were in fact stolen by Russian intelligence, and Guccifer 2.0
acted as a front. Also in late July, candidate Trump praises WikiLeaks,
says he loves them, and openly appeals to the Russians to hack his opponent’s
emails, telling them that they will be richly rewarded by the press.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Congressman Adam Schiff.
Julian, I’m wondering if you could respond to some of the things he’s saying in
that statement?

4.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, but, Julian, I
wanted to ask you, in relations to what you said, we’ve had other guests on,
for instance, Scott Horton, who said, yes, you’re absolutely right, the United
States has been involved in seeking to destabilize governments and overthrow
governments all over the world. But Horton said that there’s a difference between what Russia
attempted to do and whether anyone in the Trump administration colluded with
Russia or helped or cooperated or had conversations with the Russians as they
were seeking to destabilize the U.S. elections. And Scott Horton says that
would be definitely a problematic issue for Trump. [The error and hypocritical
blindness is so obvious in this objection that the only explanation I can think
of for the stupidity of Ms. Goodman and Mr. Gonzalez is that the imperial mentality of the
United States is so strong that it will be a long time before somebody begins
to realise that the U.S. is the source of the majority of the Evil in this
World.] I’m wondering your thoughts about that?

5.AMY GOODMAN: You know, while Trump may or
may not have investments in Russia, it’s very clear the oligarchs in Russia
have bailed him out to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, if not more, in
the United States, when he was building buildings, having gone bankrupt many
times, hard to get a line of credit, in places like just right near Democracy
Now!, Trump SoHo, a major building project downtown Manhattan. But I wanted
to turn back to Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff speaking at a hearing of the
House Intelligence Committee last month.

REP. ADAM
SCHIFF: On August 8th,
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump political adviser and self-proclaimed political
dirty trickster, boasts in a speech that he has communicated with Assange and that
more documents would be coming, including an October surprise. In the
middle of August, he also communicates with the Russian cutout Guccifer 2.0 and
authors a Breitbart piece denying Guccifer’s links to Russian intelligence.
Then, later in August, Stone does something truly remarkable, when he predicts
that John Podesta’s personal emails will soon be published. “Trust me,” he
says, “it will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel, hashtag #CrookedHillary.”
In the weeks that follow, Stone shows a remarkable prescience. “I have total
confidence that WikiLeaks and my hero, Julian Assange, will educate the
American people soon,” he says, hashtag, “#LockHerUp.” “Payload coming,” he
predicts. And two days later, it does. WikiLeaks releases its first batch of
Podesta emails. The release of John Podesta’s emails would then continue on a
daily basis up until the election.

6.AMY GOODMAN:And this is Trump adviser Roger Stone
speaking on August 8th.

REPORTER: Now, with regard to the October surprise,
what would be your forecast on that, given what Julian Assange has intimated he’s
going to do?

ROGER STONE: Well, it could be any number of things.
I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his
documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation. But there’s no telling what the
October surprise may be.

AMY GOODMAN:That was Roger Stone, speaking August 8th
in Broward County, Florida. If you could respond to the substance of
what they’re saying, Julian, and explain what is your relationship with Roger
Stone?

7.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Julian, in terms of
the material you have releases so far, you did redact any of the computer codes
that you got access to, and you offered to have companies that may be affected
by this, tech companies, to provide them the codes so that they could fix any
vulnerabilities. Have any companies taken you up on the offer?

8.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In October, The
Intercept published a conversation
between Glenn Greenwald and Naomi Klein about WikiLeaks’s decision to disclose
thousands of John Podesta’s personal emails. This is part of what Naomi Klein
said.

NAOMI KLEIN: I would add, it’s not just that they
didn’t curate it and just dumped it all, right? They are dumping it, but they
are doling out the dumps—right?—to maximize—clearly, to maximize damage. Right?
So they’re not just saying, “Hey, information wants to be free. Here is
everything we have. Journalists, have a field day. Go through it.” Right? You
know, they’re very clearly looking for maximum media attention—you can tell
that just by looking at the WikiLeaks, you know, Twitter feed—and, you know,
timing it right before the debate. You’ve
written about how dangerous it is for media organizations to be taking such a
highly political approach to this election, because they so clearly don’t want
Trump to get elected, so they’re engaging in what you’ve described as
journalistic fraud, right? I agree with you.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right.

NAOMI KLEIN:But we have to acknowledge how political
WikiLeaks and Julian are being here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Naomi Klein in October.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, your response to some of her remarks?

9.AMY GOODMAN:You know, early in the campaign, Naomi
did write an article that—clearly supporting Bernie Sanders, writing Hillary
Clinton cannot be trusted. [People change, Ms. Goodman, including you and Ms.
Klein.] But we are also joined by Allan Nairn, longtime investigative
journalist and activist. Allan, if you can weigh in this discussion right now,
as we talk to Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy?

10.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julian, your response? I’d
like to also, if you can, talk about—you’ve mentioned, at numerous times, the
existence of the deep state, and what the relationship with the deep state is
to your perspective about what’s going on right now in the United states?